1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for extracting a movement path, and more particularly, to a movement path extracting apparatus and method that may extract a movement path of a camera through an image sequence photographed using a camera group in which a mutual geometric relationship is fixed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A map service refers to a service provided in a mobile environment, a personal computer (PC) environment through the Internet, and the like. The map service provides map data desired by a user using satellite images or aerial photographs.
A recent map service also provides ground images photographed on the ground in addition to the map data of satellite images or aerial photographs, thereby providing a preview of an area desired by the user. In this example, the map service may provide panoramic ground images and thus, the user may view a panorama of a vicinity of the desired area.
The ground images may be mapped to map data corresponding to positions at which the ground images are photographed. In general, the ground images may be acquired from a photographing apparatus fixed on a transportation device. The transportation device may be used to acquire ground images of a wide area in a short time. In this example, the transportation device may use a position tracking apparatus to track a movement path of the transportation device.
A recent position tracking apparatus may obtain accurate positional information within a margin of error of a centimeter (cm) level since positions corrected at a reference station may be transferred over a network. Nevertheless, the position tracking apparatus may obtain the positional information at a relatively low frequency, when compared to a speed at which the ground images are photographed by the photographing apparatus. Thus, the map service may need to calculate the positions at which the acquired ground images are photographed, based on the obtained positional information.
Accordingly, a method of calculating a position of a photographing apparatus that photographs a ground image by analyzing the photographed ground image will be provided herein.